Stargate : The Ark Of Truth (2008) 7/10

Starring : Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Michael Shanks, Beau Bridges, Claudia Black, Currie Graham, Morena Baccarin, Tim Guinee, Julian Sands
Director : Robert C Cooper
Running Time : 98 mins

SG-1 are forced to travel into dangerous Ori controlled space to retrieve a fabled artefact known as The Ark Of Truth which may hold the answer to finally defeating their enemy. But things go from bad to worse when they are attacked by a group of evil replicating killing machines called Replicators...

Spinning off from the insanely popular TV show which ran for a decade, this movie in some ways tries to help bring closure to the show, which was cancelled a year earlier. Basically this will only really appeal to fans of the show, and new viewers may have ten years of questions that will undoubtedly go unanswered without first watching the show. Having said that, the storyline is pretty much stand-alone and, once you get to grips with the characteristics of the characters, things are pretty easy to follow and filled with exposition.

You’ll like this if you liked : Serenity

Elysium (2013) 8/10

Starring : Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga
Director : Neil Blomkamp
Running Time : 110 mins

When Max Da Costa (Damon) is contaminated in a radiation accident, he is given five days to live. In order to receive the treatment he needs to extend his life, he must travel to Elysium, a utopian space station that houses the richest members of society. So he makes a deal with some criminals to highjack some top secret data in return for a ticket to Elysium so he can live.

As far as science fiction action movies go, this was one of the better ones I’ve seen in recent years. It’s nice to have a character whose motivations are selfish, even though Max is also helping out a little girl, and Kruger getting his face reconstructed was a particular highlight for me. Fans of old school action flicks will get a kick out of this, and it helps that there’s a plot to follow and a suitable upbeat ending.

You’ll like this if you liked : Total Recall

Pirates Of The Caribbean : On Stranger Tides (2011) 7/10

Starring : Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush, Ian McShane
Director : Rob Marshall
Running Time : 137 mins

Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) discovers that someone has been impersonating him in order to cobble together a pirate crew. He soon discovers that the impersonator is Angelica Teach (Cruz), an old flame who forces him aboard the ship of Blackbeard (McShane) and on a journey in search of the fountain of youth and immortality.

In spite of hearing some terrible reviews of the fourth Pirates movie, I actually thought it was pretty good. Granted the plot felt like it had been lifted from an Indiana Jones movie, but the story was sound and proved that you can have Jack Sparrow without the need for Bloom and Knightley. Fans of the original exploits of Captain Jack will like this instalment that keeps him centre stage for the full proceedings.

You’ll like this if you liked : Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade

The Internship (2013) 8/10

Starring : Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne
Director : Shawn Levy
Running Time : 126 mins

When Billy McMahon (Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Wilson) discover that the sales company they work for has closed down, they find themselves thrown back into the job market whilst in their forties. So Billy comes up with the idea of faking college qualifications and applying for an internship at Google – a long-shot, but worth a try. When they are accepted on the internship, they receive a rude awakening of how unfair and unjust the life of as college graduate can be.

This is an old school comedy that works reasonably well considering just how long it is. Vaughn and Wilson, as usual, make a fun team, and the supporting cats are great as the Google nerds. The moral to the story feels a little too late for my liking, and there should have been some earlier notice of the wrong doings of the other teams – they still could have kept the baddies in the lead – but, if you ignore all the swearing, this is an accessible and funny comedy that delivers.

You’ll like this if you liked : Accepted

Mud (2012) 7/10

Starring : Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Shepard
Director : Jeff Nichols
Running Time : 131 mins

Ellis (Sheridan) and his friend Neckbone (Lofland) discover a boat suspended from the branches of a tree and decide to lay claim to it. When they discover that a man named Mud (McConaughey) has been living in it, they confront him on the beach and come to an agreement – they can have the boat if they help him get supplies from town. When they find out he is a convict on the run for killing a man who hurt his girlfriend Juniper (Witherspoon), they decide to help him repair the boat so he can make his escape in it.

Loosely based on Tom Sawyer, this movie does a great job of paralleling the lives of Mud and Ellis, and it is quite scary towards the end when what happened to Mud when he was younger seems to be happening to Ellis. The ambiguity of Mud’s innocence is never put into question, so we never have him lying to the boys that are helping him, though he does use tricky words to get things his own way. Fans of Mark Twain should enjoy this, but it isn’t brilliant.

You’ll like this if you liked : Stand By Me

Lovelace (2013) 7/10

Starring : Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Juno Temple
Director : Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman
Running Time : 93 mins

Linda Boreman (Seyfried) finds herself coerced by her abusive husband Chuck Traynor (Sarsgaard) into featuring in a blue movie, and when the movie becomes a huge commercial success she finds herself in the limelight as a star in her own right, but when she decides she doesn’t want to make any more porn films her husband starts forcing her into doing even less agreeable things.

If you want to see Amanda Seyfried with her boobs out, then this is the movie for you. This effortlessly goes from tongue in cheek humour to serious drama with hardly a seem in sight, and for those who haven’t seen the film this talks about, this is a nice plot description without having to watch the movie itself. The performances are reasonable, but I wasn’t a fan of the back-and-forth direction which annoyingly relied on writing “six months later” up on screen to explain that time periods had changed.

You’ll like this if you liked : Boogie Nights

Next Avengers : Heroes Of Tomorrow (2008) 6/10

Starring : Noah C Crawford, Brenna O’Brien, Aidan Drummond, Dempsey M Pappion, Adrian Petriw, Tom Kane
Director : Jay Oliva
Running Time : 79 mins

The Avengers have been wiped out by the evil robot Ultron (Kane), and their children have been taken into hiding by Tony Stark aka. Iron Man (Kane). When the kids accidentally activate the Iron Avengers, robot versions of the originals created by Stark, the robots head off in search of Ultron and inadvertently alert Ultron to the kids’ location.

This is quite different to the other Marvel animated movies, and it feels like it has been designed primarily for kids whereas the other movies seemed to target a far wider audience. Because the characters aren’t that familiar, other than the obvious ones, it takes some time to get used to them, and as a result this isn’t the best of the Marvel movies. However, young children will enjoy the silly kids running around fighting robots.

You’ll like this if you liked : Astro Boy

Alan Partridge : Alpha Papa (2013) 8/10

Starring : Steve Coogan, Colm Meaney, Felicity Montagu, Anna Maxwell Martin, Darren Boyd
Director : Declan Lowney
Running Time : 91 mins

When Radio Norwich is taken over and rebranded as Shape FM, radio DJ Alan Partridge (Coogan) worries that he is going to lose his job, so he sabotages his colleague Pat Farrell (Meaney). On the night of the new launch, Pat lays siege to the staff after being sacked, and Alan is sent in by police to try and diffuse the situation. Unfortunately, in a way, Alan agrees with Pat’s standpoint.

The name of this movie got me confused – the Alpha Papa referring to Alan’s initials used during the siege and having nothing to do with him being a great dad. Once I got passed that confusion, this is a really good British comedy that keeps the jokes and the action coming thick and fast. Fans of Alan Partridge will love this latest instalment, but people unfamiliar with him should still find this a very funny movie.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Parole Officer

The Paperboy (2012) 6/10

Starring : Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack
Director : Lee Daniels
Running Time : 107 mins

Miami reporter Ward Jansen (McConaughey) returns to his home town to investigate a racially motivated murder apparently committed by a man named Hillary Van Wetter (Cusack), taking his brother Jack (Efron) on as his driver for the investigation, but when Jack becomes involved with Charlotte Bless (Kidman), the fiancée of Van Wetter, things get a little personal for everyone involved.

I’m not quite sure how necessary all the sex scenes were to the storyline, but clearly the writer thought they were. None of the characters are very likeable, and the investigation is disjointed and difficult to follow, what with there being little or no explanation as to how they came up with the witnesses to question. The performances are forced and stilted, although parts of the ending (for me) were satisfying, but the open ended-ness of the piece really left me feeling like I’d been cheated out of a resolution.

You’ll like this if you liked : Monster's Ball

Gravity (2013) 7/10

Starring : Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris
Director : Alfonso Cuaron
Running Time : 91 mins

Medical engineer Dr Ryan Stone (Bullock) is on her first mission with NASA, installing some much needed medical equipment on a space station. When some space debris hits their shuttle, destroying it, she and retiring astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) find themselves stranded in space with only each other for comfort and little hope of rescue or survival.

This movie pretty much kicks off straight away with the action, giving little time to get to know the main characters. Thankfully we have 90 minutes of them floating around in space together to give us some idea of what kind of people they are. The effects are impressive and almost 100% CGI, but luckily this doesn’t detract too much from the story which is nail-biting stuff. This is a definite must for disaster movie fans.

You’ll like this if you liked : Moon

The Help (2011) 8/10

Starring : Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Ahna O’Reilly, Allison Janney, Anna Camp
Director : Tate Taylor
Running Time : 147 mins

In 1960s Mississippi, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Stone) returns from college determined to become a writer. Taking a job writing a help column for housewives, she starts talking with one of her friend’s housemaids, Aibileen Clark (Davis), and comes up with the idea of writing a book taken from a black maid’s perspective on how they are treated by their white employers.

This entertaining and enlightening perspective on how black maids were treated in the American South of the 1960s – as well as their views on their employers – makes a dramatic yet humorous movie. The performances are understated and wonderful to watch, with my only gripe being the ending which to me didn’t really give much closure to the characters. I guess this leant more realism to the piece, but it was sad not finding out what happened to the various characters involved.

You’ll like this if you liked : Saving Mr Banks

Veronica Mars (2014) 8/10

Starring : Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Krysten Ritter, Ryan Hansen, Francis Capra, Percy Daggs III, Gaby Hoffman, Chris Lowell, Tina Majorino, Jerry O’Connell, Martin Starr, Jamie Lee Curtis, Enrico Colantoni
Director : Rob Thomas
Running Time : 108 mins

Seven years after teenage detective Veronica Mars (Bell) left her home town of Neptune, California, she finds herself lured back to her high school’s ten year reunion when her ex-boyfriend Logan Echolls (Dohring) is accused of killing his current girlfriend. Veronica starts investigating the truth about the murder, and discovers that the killing goes back to an incident back in high school that resulted in another student’s death.

Fans of the show that ran in the mid to late naughties will love seeing their favourite characters back, this time on the big screen. The main problem is that many of them don’t get enough screen time, mainly due to how vast the cast was in the show. Thankfully, Veronica hasn’t changed much in her almost a decade of absence, and is still the nosy little sleuth we all knew and loved. Those new to the character shouldn’t have too much of a problem getting up to speed, as there is something of a recap in the opening credits, but this is well and truly made for the fan base.

You’ll like this if you liked : Nancy Drew

The Company You Keep (2012) 7/10

Starring : Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Jackie Evancho, Brendan Gleeson, Terrence Howard, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Susan Sarandon
Director : Robert Redford
Running Time : 118 mins

Lawyer Jim Grant (Redford) finds his life in danger when reporter Ben Shepard (LaBeouf) unwittingly reveals Grant’s true identity as underground militant Nick Sloan to the world. Sloan then goes on the run, trying desperately to clear his name before the FBI catch up with him.

Although a little short on action, this wasn’t a bad little thriller, with one hell of a star-studded cast. The story has some nice twists and turns, and Redford and LaBeouf do their best to keep things interesting. It does have something of a Hollywood ending – it would have been nice if things hadn’t been so black and white in the end – but the investigation into Redford by LaBeouf’s character is really what maintains the story throughout the duration.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Fugitive

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (2013) 8/10

Starring : Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Sean Penn
Director : Ben Stiller
Running Time : 115 mins

When his job as a negative assets manager at Life magazine is brought under threat due to a once-in-sixteen years error that sees him losing an important photo negative, daydreamer Walter Mitty (Stiller) decides to leave his boring life behind and go on a round the world journey to find the photographer Sean O’Connell (Penn) and try to get a copy of the negative back.

Very loosely based on the short story by James Thurber, this updated adaptation probably has more in comparison with the 1947 movie of the same name than with the source material. Stiller tries his best to be likeable, which is only really achieved because Adam Scott manages to be so unlikeable, and the situations that Mitty gets himself into are so outlandish that they should keep the movie entertaining, but I actually found that the best moments were the scenes set firmly in reality where characters are simply talking amongst themselves and subtly telling us what kind of person they really are.

You’ll like this if you liked : Life Of Pi

Scooby-Doo! Music Of The Vampire (2011) 7/10

Starring : Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard
Director : David Block
Running Time : 76 mins

In the seventeenth of the direct to video Scooby-Doo series, Velma Dinkley (Cohn) decides the gang need a break from mystery solving, so takes them to a vampire fan convention. Unfortunately a real life vampire that has been preserved in a glass coffin escapes while a group of his worshippers kidnap Daphne (DeLisle) to present to him as a sacrifice.

Most of the stories I’d heard about the musical Scooby-Doo movie involved just how terrible it was, so I was expecting a non-stop musical extravaganza that had no storyline to speak of and that made no sense. This, however, was pretty similar to previous instalments, albeit with additional musical numbers, but the story was just as good as other ones and did on the most part avoid music as a replacement for good story telling.

You’ll like this if you liked : Scooby-Doo And The Legend Of The Vampire

About Time (2013) 8/10

Starring : Domnhall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan
Director : Richard Curtis
Running Time : 124 mins

On his 21st birthday, Tim Lake (Gleeson) is informed by his father (Nighy) that he has inherited the ability to travel back in time within his own lifetime. Realising that he can’t use this power for financial gain, he decides to use it to find a girlfriend. He soon meets Mary (McAdams), an American working in London for a publishing company, and he starts reliving their moments together until he can get them perfect.

The moment where Tim meets Mary in the restaurant run by blind people could have lasted so much longer, with Tim trying to get Harry’s play just right while still meeting Mary. It’s a shame he wasted that moment as it’s a great first meeting story, and instead he gets the creepy party moment as their first meeting, where he basically just hooks up with her. This is classic Curtis fair, with the strangely poor yet middle-class setting and the comedy of errors moments, but this is much more of a drama than, say, Love Actually or Notting Hill, and though the moral of the story seems to be that life is worth living just once and that you can’t get everything perfect, this isn’t explicitly spelled out. Just think, if he couldn’t travel through time, Tim’s life would have been pretty much the same.

You’ll like this if you liked : Click

Promised Land (2012) 8/10

Starring : Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, John Krasinski, Hal Holbrook
Director : Gus Van Sant
Running Time : 107 mins

Gas salespeople Steve Butler (Damon) and Sue Thomason (McDormand) arrive in a small rural town in the hope of getting the permission of the locals to allow them to drill on their land, but when local teacher Frank Yates (Holbrook) convinces the town that they need to hold a vote on the decision, Steve and Sue find their job a lot more difficult, and when eco fighter Dustin Noble (Krasinski) arrives in town and starts to stir up trouble, that difficulty becomes a near impossibility.

This was actually a reasonably entertaining movie with one hell of a twist in the end. Damon and McDormand make an interesting pairing and keep the drama light for the duration of the film, and Krasinski makes an interesting nemesis for them, what with him being the seemingly good guy of the piece, yet our focus is on the bad guys.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Company Men

The Lone Ranger (2013) 7/10

Starring : Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson
Director : Gore Verbinski
Running Time : 150 mins

A young boy is told the tale of John Reid (Hammer) – the Lone Ranger – by an elderly Tonto (Depp), and explains how they met and joined forces to track down Butch Cavendish (Fichtner), the man responsible for the death of John Reid’s brother, a fellow Texas Ranger, and their plan to rescue his widow Rebecca (Wilson) from the clutches of Latham Cole (Wilkinson), a man who plans to use a proposed railroad combined with a stolen silver mine to become the most powerful man in the West.

Despite some terrible reviews, this wasn’t that bad a movie. It was far too long, and in spite of the Disney name this wasn’t really aimed at children, but the drama and action is mixed with some comedy to make this pretty entertaining, and the train chase is well worth waiting two hours for.

You’ll like this if you liked : Back To The Future Part III